Leonard Cohen’s shining return to Montreal

June 23, 2008 | Filed Under General, Portraits | Leave a Comment 

Montreal (23 June 2008) - Will there ever be another opening night like the one by Leonard Cohen on Monday in Montreal? What a triumph it was for this reed of a man with the granite voice whose art has so touched the world. How elegant he was, how dapper, dignified, generous and kind. For three and a half hours Cohen held a capacity crowd in his hand at Place des Arts, and the crowd, in turn, held him, neither quite willing to let the evening go when it finally, wistfully, came to a close. It was Cohen’s first Montreal concert in 15 years and, at age 73, it may be the last occasion this icon of Quebec and Canada opens in the city that gave him birth. I hope it’s not, but the thought was there as he stood on the broad Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier stage, immaculate in a dark gray suit and jaunty fedora, and offered up his heart and voice. What country would not kill to call Leonard Cohen its own? I never tire of seeing him, or hearing his voice, or reading his words. Whenever his face appears on television, or looms from a newspaper page or magazine, I stop to watch, to read, to listen. He is a artist who knows that the power of words is proportionate to the economy and precision in which they are used, and that humour and humility heighten the impact. “I was born like this. I had no choice,” he intoned in the Tower of Song. “I was born with the gift of a golden voice.” As always, the line provoked applause and appreciative laughter. Yet Cohen’s voice is golden, the perfect showcase for his effortless lyrics. I marvel at the marriage of his words and voice. Cohen will spend weeks, months, years sometimes, crafting the perfect line, waiting for the words to arrange themselves in the best possible order, to reduce and settle into an ever more perfect union upon the page. The right words in the right order are prose. Perfect words in the perfect order are poetry, and few push poetry farther than Leonard Cohen at his best. - David Blaikie. Complete Review

Great Blue Heron

June 8, 2008 | Filed Under General | Leave a Comment 

The great blue heron, with its long sharp bill and intense eyes, is a familiar and majestic sight along the shorelines and among the wetlands of southern Canada. This photo was taken at Hog’s Back Falls in Ottawa.